Evercore ISI analyst Glenn Schorr raised the price target on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to $440.00 (from $435.00) while maintaining a Outperform rating.

The analyst comments "GS 4Q23 $11.58 EPS vs. Our/Street of $8.70/$8.73: Straight up strong quarter with a more optimistic outlook on activity and continued progress on the company’s multiple strategic initiatives (so it felt better than the typical good 1Q). We liked mgmt. commentary around corporate and sponsor intent / need to transact, pressure from LPs, conducive financing backdrop and the much larger equity and fixed income ponds to fish in. While we don’t want to get too excited about an active 1st quarter that might have pulled forward some activity, it definitely feels like GS got more than their typical share (banking, trading, financing, asset mgmt…) and also showed continued progress on important company initiatives including growing financing revenue, growing mgmt. fees, reducing its on balance sheet principal investments (with a better guide) and producing better operating leverage (non-comp was down 6% and is a good run rate). With a CET1 up to 14.7% and Basel III likely coming in, the optionality of capital to put it to work for growth and capital return is moving in the right direction for sure. Not completely sure how you perform like that while RWA stayed flat (like eating ice scream and losing weight), but GS is always in RWA mgmt.-mode, said trading performed well with a deploy & recycle capital mentality and I’m sure the selling down of HPI and Greensky helped too."